


on courting death

by staymonkey



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: Chthonic Family Fluff, Courtship, Fluff, Flustered Thanatos, M/M, Pining, Pre-Canon, Teasing, There’s an entire Nyx creation myth in the beginning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:41:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28192632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/staymonkey/pseuds/staymonkey
Summary: Although they weren’t boys anymore, Nyx took comfort in the fact that Thanatos and Hypnos were irrevocably bound to Hades, the same as she. They could venture to the surface, but they could never stay. They’d always be drawn home, to the gleaming House of Hades. The baubles and charms of the surface world, and Olympus beyond, couldn’t hope to compare.Probably.
Relationships: Ares/Thanatos (Hades Video Game), Implied Ares/Aphrodite
Comments: 28
Kudos: 178





	on courting death

**Author's Note:**

> formerly called vicious cycle after an ares boon, but it was an oddly angsty title for a light hearted fic, so I updated it!

Thanatos and Hypnos were born prematurely.

Nyx had been alone, adrift from Chaos, when she found comfort in Erebus. It was through Erebus that Nyx mothered the cosmos. Erebus first gave Nyx her eldest daughters, the Fates, whose threads spun promises of an end to the liminal loneliness that preceded creation. Then, came Aither and Hemera, who brought light and contrast. Shortly after, Nyx bore Uranus, and for his enjoyment, she hung the planets.

Charon was Nyx’s first chthonic child.

She’d only mothered celestials before him, but he was no less impressive for being born of Gaia’s depths (who’d since emerged, like Chaos, from nothing). The goddess Styx, a child of Gaia, delivered Charon. He was born with fierce, flashing eyes, for which he was named, and upon his birth, he clung to Styx’s skirts such that Nyx recognized his fate would be with her. And so, her celestial children having outgrown her fussing, Nyx followed Charon to Hades, so that she could be close to him while he sought to be close to Styx.

But Charon grew far too quickly. Even after Styx joined the current of her river, he thrived in Hades and did not need Nyx as she’d hoped he would. Again, she was alone, adrift without children to nurture. She longed for motherhood again, and it was through her longing that she willed Thanatos and Hypnos into existence. 

They were winged, like Nyx and like Chaos, but they were fussy and terribly small. Their eyes would not open and they could not speak the gods’ tongue. Pitifully, their limbs were thick and short, and they could not stand on their own, despite their godhood. Instead, they kicked uselessly and cried until their round, grey faces burned gold. She swept them into her stars and consulted her daughters, the Fates, who assured her there wasn’t anything wrong with the newborns. The Fates’ baby brothers would grow, they’d simply been born to a world not yet made ready for them. It would not be made ready for quite some time.

Nyx didn’t mind. For them, she rooted herself to Hades, condensing her vastness so that she had arms with which to cradle them, and a voice with which to sing to them. There were no stars, and so she molded darkness into teardrop-shaped gems that reflected the color of their brother Charon’s eyes. There was no sun to warm their skin, and so she crafted them jewelry and armor hammered from gold gifted by Nyx’s grandson, Helios.

Under Nyx’s attention, the boys grew. They settled down from the fussiness of their infanthood as their limbs became long and gangly. They took their first steps, and shortly after they could chase each other and play games on the bank of the river Lethe. Their personalities became apparent: Hypnos was smarmy, lighthearted, and airy while Thanatos was bashful, thoughtful, and sensitive. Still, their eyes remained closed, and Nyx never let them stray far from her or their brother Charon, who delighted in rowing them up and down the river Styx.

The Fates warned Nyx of the Titanomachy well before Rhea welcomed Demeter, who would become her eldest. But the boys were still so small, with wiry frames and eyes they could not open, and so Nyx remained in Hades, unwilling to involve herself if it meant exposing her children to the violence of war. 

The gods, led by the godling Zeus, prevailed. She entreated them and they, with deference to her status and in recognition of her plight as a mother, invited her into the new state of affairs. Hades would remain hers, but she’d be joined by one of Rhea’s whelps in the administration of Hades. He, too, was named Hades and when Nyx met him, she found she didn’t dislike him.

He was somber but practical and respectful. He gave Nyx space, until he began to structure the underworld in his image, after which he consulted her frequently. She quickly learned he didn’t care much for his siblings, but that he cared very much for ritual and careful administration. Nyx didn’t share his desire for a rigid structure, but she respected his ambition.

And, most importantly, Lord Hades was kind to Nyx’s children.

Charon shared Lord Hades’s stoicism and affection for ritual, and he enjoyed the wealth Hades uncovered as Lord Hades carved his realm. Hades shared his spoils with Charon, and it was Lord Hades who nursed Charon’s penchant for collecting precious, glittering things. The twins, meanwhile, found great fun tugging on Lord Hades’s beard, which he took in stride.

He never asked Nyx why Thanatos and Hypnos were so slight, and he never asked after their eyes. He accepted them as they were, and never pried Nyx for the information she did not offer. Thus, Nyx grew fond of Lord Hades, and the realm benefited from their professional companionship.

The world changed, but Nyx and her boys did not.

That is until Prometheus sculpted the first mortal from clay. In the very same moment Zeus commanded Athena and Hephaestus to grant humans life, the twins opened their golden eyes.

Thanatos and Hypnos had been born prematurely, but their godhood actualized with the birth of humankind. No longer children, they were the daimons of peaceful death and sleep. Hades carved roles for them, which were accompanied by gifts.

Lord Hades gave Hypnos poppies, which Hypnos wove into his belt, and asked that Hypnos work alongside Thanatos to bring the dead eternal rest. But Hypnos couldn’t bear to be separated from his mother, and so Hades allowed Hypnos to cling to Nyx and follow her as she performed her own duties instead.

Thanatos, however, was glad to be on his own. Like Hypnos, he could traverse the surface realm just as easily as he could Hades. Although, unlike Hypnos, he couldn’t access Olympus and her deathless halls. This was fine for Lord Hades’s purposes; Lord Hades charged Thanatos with reaping souls and guiding them to Charon. To that end, Lord Hades gifted him a scythe, which took to Thanatos with the same fervor that Charon took to Styx.

Nyx tried not to be jealous.

Allowing Thanatos to leave her for the surface was far more difficult than she expected. After centuries spent urging her children to mature, it caught her by surprise when they finally did, seemingly overnight. She’d grown so attached, she wouldn’t let them go about their duties without cloaking Thanatos so that his skin wouldn’t burn under the scorching sun and swaddling Hypnos in a blanket for when his narcolepsy took hold.

Although they weren’t boys anymore, Nyx took comfort in the fact that Thanatos and Hypnos were irrevocably bound to Hades, the same as she. They could venture to the surface, but they could never stay. They’d always be drawn home, to the gleaming House of Hades. The baubles and charms of the surface world, and Olympus beyond, couldn’t hope to compare.

Probably.

* * *

Death first met the baubles and charms of Olympus when humankind became clever enough to poison each other. Which took longer than it perhaps should have.

Thanatos had received a call. Hypnos had joined him in rare form, but they’d arrived upon an unusual scene. Together they stood over the body of an influential tribesman, perplexed.

“He’s dead,” Thanatos said.

“Yes,” Hypnos mused. “Perhaps he should have thought about drinking water that wasn’t poisoned.”

“He died in his bed, at rest,” Thanatos added.

“It would appear so,” Hypnos replied. “It’s why you’re here. He drank from his cup, went to sleep, and now he’s having difficulty waking.” He shrugged. “It happens.”

“It doesn’t just _happen_ ,” Thanatos argued. “He drank from a poisoned cup; no one does that on purpose. Someone must have poisoned him, although I can’t imagine why.” Thanatos peered closer, and then made a face. “Look how he bleeds at his mouth! His death throes were so violent, he bit his own tongue. This is a meal for the Keres, I shouldn’t even be here.”

“You wouldn’t have heard the call if this soul wasn’t yours to collect,” Hypnos yawned. “Just reap the soul so that we can return to Mother. The surface makes me tired.”

“You’re always tired,” Thanatos retorted.

“That is why you should be nice to me, and let me return to my rest,” Hypnos whined.

“Not until I understand what’s happened,” Thanatos retorted.

Hypnos fell asleep anyway, hovering alongside the bed of the deceased while Thanatos circled the room, searching for—well, he wasn’t sure. He was searching for something that could make sense of this, but perhaps that was too tall an order. His role was to reap souls, and he didn’t often ask questions. But Lord Hades had never requested that he reap a violently killed soul before; Thanatos had no stomach for it.

A throat cleared from the entrance to the room, and Thanatos looked up, startled.

A hulking, gleaming figure crowned in black laurels stood, helmet under his arm. Undoubtedly a god, from his impressive stature. His dark skin was painted in white, like the mortals did with ink under their skin. Scenes of deer and geometric patterns littered his thick calves and thighs in the style of the time. But his armor was of Olympus, white and gold and unlike anything the mortals knew yet. He wore an emanating sense of dread like a perfume, and his eyes were a piercing red.

He was beautiful.

“Lord Death,” the painted god rumbled, his voice deep and proud. “We haven’t had the pleasure. I am Ares Enyalios.”

Thanatos hadn’t ever met Lord Ares, but all of Hades knew of Lord Ares; Lady Hera had conceived him herself, and Lord Zeus was furious with Lord Hades after Lorde Hades broke a millennial long silence with Olympus to congratulate her.

Thanatos had heard Lady Aphrodite herself was his consort, and the women of Thrace would kill, _had_ killed, to feel his touch. Lord Ares was the god of violence, and cowardice, and all sorts of things for which Thanatos had no taste.

Ares’s silver hair also fell about his face in elegant waves, and he had thick arms and a handsome face. 

Thanatos didn’t care for the feeling Lord Ares inspired in his gut, so he dismissed it.

“Hello, Son of Hera,” Thanatos said carefully, neutrally, “My sisters, the Keres, speak highly of you. What business have you here?”

Ares smiled, a subtle curl of his lips. “I’ve heard of you too, Son of Nyx. I wanted to meet you. I’ve admired you from afar for quite some time.”

Thanatos stiffened sharply. Hypnos blearily opened his eyes.

“Don’t mind me,” Hypnos mused. “Just act like I’m not here.”

Thanatos pulled his hood around his face. “Oh, well. Now we’ve met, then. But I should finish here, Lord Ares. If you’ll excuse me.”

He turned away from Lord Ares and faced the deceased again. With a sweep of his scythe, he reaped the soul, pretending as if he couldn’t feel Lord Ares’s gaze at his back. He cupped his hand around the butterfly that pulled itself from the dead man’s chest. Then, without a glance behind him, he absconded in a flutter of his wings.

Hypnos and Ares watched him leave, Hypnos irritably, and Ares with furrowed brows.

“Have I offended him?” Ares asked. “I meant to compliment him.”

Hypnos grinned lopsidedly. “Have you tried not overwhelming him?”

* * *

When Thanatos returned to Hades, he sought out Megaera to ask after Ares. He found her cleaning her whip of oath breakers’ blood in the river Cocytus.

“Ares?” She murmured. “I wouldn’t know. My sisters and I go to the surface to avenge maternal blood spilled; we don’t engage with the Olympians. You shouldn’t either.”

She snapped her whip and Thanatos grimaced as water sprayed him. Megaera smirked.

“I didn’t engage,” Thanatos insisted, drying himself on the hem of his himation. “He approached me; I was only working.”

Megaera frowned. “If he asked anything of you unreasonable, you should go to Lord Hades. We serve him and Mother Nyx, not pompous demagogues.” She left her whip unfurled so that it would continue to dry.

“He didn’t ask anything of me,” Thanatos said. “He only said he wanted to meet me.”

His face flushed gold, and he turned away, but not before Megaera saw. She blinked, surprised, but then she smirked.

“I have heard of Ares, even if I’ve never encountered him myself,” she said conversationally. “I’ve heard of his beauty. And his bloodthirst. He loves his mother. You also love your mother, perhaps that’s something you can speak about together.”

“And what about his pompous demagoguery?” Thanatos retorted, crossing his arms. She gestured flippantly.

“The Olympians are self-important,” she conceded. “But unlike the rest of them, Ares doesn’t mind a little dirt in his blood. I’ve also never met a daughter of his that I didn’t like. You could do worse.”

Thanatos shot her a sharp, scandalized look and she laughed.

“I’m glad this is funny to you,” Thanatos huffed. Megaera’s eyes softened.

“It’s not, it’s just… unanticipated. I’d begun to think you didn’t have an interest in such things. And yet, here you fawn over an _Olympian_. Like a lovestruck nymph.”

“I am no such thing!” Thanatos bristled. “I regret coming to you. You’re a menace, sent only to punish me for reasons only the Fates know.”

“If I were here to punish you,” Megaera mused, “you’d feel it.” She twirled her whip, and Thanatos watched it warily.

After having her fill with his discomfort, Megaera set aside the whip and cupped Thanatos’s face.

“This could be good for you,” Megaera assured him, in all seriousness. “It’s fine to indulge yourself, every so often. Even if it’s with a hot-blooded young god several centuries your junior.”

Thanatos blanched, and Megaera laughed again. 

* * *

The next time Thanatos saw Lord Ares, Lord Ares was waiting for him beneath an olive tree. The mortal man at Ares’s feet was elderly and had chosen there to take his final breaths. There was no foul play, no poison, no ambiguity. This was Thanatos’s call, but Lord Ares was waiting.

Thanatos wasn’t sure how to proceed. He hovered, torn between politely asking Lord Ares to move aside or reaping the soul despite Lord Ares’s closeness, and risk cutting him with his scythe. Ares hadn’t grown any less beautiful since Thanatos had last seen him, unfortunately.

“Lord Ares,” Thanatos finally said. “If you’d please step aside, I’ve a soul to collect.”

“Lord Thanatos,” Lord Ares greeted politely. His expression was soft, and it was such an odd look on his stony face. Thanatos’s gut twisted.

“Lord Ares,” Thanatos said again, before visibly flushing because he’d said it twice. But Lord Ares’s lips twitched in a subdued smile, and Thanatos felt lighter for it.

“I’m sorry to keep meeting you like this,” Lord Ares said. “I’m not sure how to catch you otherwise; you keep quite busy.”

“Death is inescapable,” Thanatos said. “And never late.”

Lord Ares stepped aside and gestured to the dying old man. Thanatos stiffened; he hadn’t meant to insinuate Lord Ares was keeping him. Still, Thanatos stepped forward to reap the soul before turning his to Ares again. He hoped he looked nonchalant, but he doubted it. 

Lord Ares watched the butterfly untangle from the corpse to flutter to rest on Thanatos’s feathered shoulder guard.

“It’s so merciful,” Ares murmured, red eyes flicking from the butterfly to Thanatos. “Nothing like when the Keres rend the soul from the bone. I could never bring death with such poise.”

“Thank you, Lord Ares.”

“I’d like to study beneath you,” Lord Ares said in that noble, rumbling baritone of his.

Thanatos flushed, pulled his hood over his face, and absconded with a flutter of wings.

* * *

“What was he _doing_?” Thanatos huffed to Charon, later. “He couldn’t have meant what I thought!”

“Hrrnnghh,” Charon offered.

“That’s—I don’t see why he would. He’s ouranic, he’s not short on admirers,” Thanatos retorted. “Not that I’m an admirer of his; I have no love for his take on death. Or him, for that matter. I don’t even know him.”

“Hrrrhhroooohh,” Charon insinuated.

“That’s an awful thing to say,” Thanatos accused. “You’re an awful brother.”

"Mmnnnrraaauuugggghhh!!"

* * *

Ares was waiting at the bedside of an elderly tribesman, humming along to the man’s death rattles as he waited for Thanatos to arrive. Under one arm he clutched his helmet, held so that the crest faced the ground.

Thanatos didn’t arrive. Instead, there was a gust of wind and Hermes appeared, frenetically hovering so close to Ares that Ares could bite his nose if the urge struck him.

“Brother,” Ares greeted. “I haven’t time for you. Leave here, I will take my messages when I return to Olympus.”

Hermes rocked back on his heels. “I’ll make a note of your preference, brother, but I’m not here for you. You shouldn’t even be here, and yet here you are! Doesn’t really seem like your scene at all, but what do I know? I’m only a messenger,” Hermes trilled with a breezy grin.

Ares frowned. Hermes’s smile didn’t waver.

“Oh,” Ares said simply. “Then what are you here for then? What message do you have to impart, and to whom, if not me?”

“I haven’t a message at all,” Hermes chirped. “But if you’ll let me along, then I can go about my business and snag that good fellow’s soul to take to my professional associate at the river Styx.” 

Ares tapped his fingers against the hilt of his sword. “This man is not your charge,” Ares warned. “It is the god Thanatos’s.”

Hermes smirked. “That may be true, brother, but when our dear friend Thanatos isn’t available to collect, dear old dad asks me to step in and pick up his slack! Not that there ever is any; Thanatos does good, clean work. It’s admirable, it really is, I should remember to tell my professional associate that his flesh does good, clean work more often. Perhaps I’ll tell him when I drop off this good fellow. If you’d excuse me—”

“Why?” Ares demanded. “Why is he unavailable? I wasn’t made aware of any circumstance that could keep Death Incarnate unavailable.”

Hermes huffed, suddenly impatient. “Thanatos is attending an errand given to him by Lord Zeus and Lord Hades jointly. It’s quite an event for those two to speak to each other, and so whatever has driven them to such extremes is nothing we want anything to do with. Now, brother, allow me to work and I’ll allow you to send me with a message to Thanatos if you’re so anxious to speak with him.”

Ares thumbed his sword again before grunting his acquiescence to Hermes’s terms.

“Very well,” Ares said. “I’d like you to give him this, on my behalf.”

Ares reached into his helmet and pulled out a serpent. It was dead. He offered the pitiful, limp thing to Hermes, and Hermes accepted it with a grimace.

“Did you kill this just now?” Hermes asked, holding it away from his messenger bag. “It’s horribly fresh. How long have you been carrying it about in your helmet?”

“I didn’t kill it,” Ares insisted, shifting his weight. “It lived a rare, long life, and I waited for it to die as nature demanded. Nonviolently. Now bring it to Thanatos, so that he may know my intentions.”

Hermes raised his eyebrows. “How terrible and uncharming— Oh! My apologies, I stumbled over my words again, didn’t I? I meant terribly charming, of course. Do you romance Lady Aphrodite with such elegant gifts too?”

“No, brother,” Ares rumbled, unimpressed. “I offer Aphrodite Anadyomenê dove hearts pickled in seawater. For Aphrodite Areia, I bring spoils from well-fought skirmishes.” Ares paused, and then his mouth twitched into a slight smile. “And for Aphrodite Philommêdês, I give myself.”

Hermes snorted. “Alright, alright, brother. I’ve learned my place. I’ll bring your offering to Lord Thanatos, and I’ll assure him you did not kill it, like a deviant. I’ll inform him you chose instead to watch it die of its own accord, which is much more reasonable.”

Ares nodded curtly.

* * *

“I haven’t the faintest idea of what to do with this,” Thanatos said weakly when Lord Hermes offered him the corpse of a serpent. Thanatos was already so, so tired from chasing a human king between the realms of the living and the dead, from which no mortal, king or not, should have been able to escape.

He was at his wit’s end, and the serpent threatened to finish him.

“It’s a gift, boss,” Lord Hermes said. “From Lord Ares. He says he watched it die with the passage of time, just for you, so it’d be kind of you to accept it, no matter how off-putting and clumsy my brother might be.”

Thanatos started. “Oh,” he said. “That’s… very well.”

* * *

He brought the serpent to Meg, and she laughed.

* * *

“I never did get the chance to thank you for the serpent,” Thanatos rasped once Ares broke the shackles around his wrists and ankles in Sisyphus’s palace. Ares lifted one of Thanatos’s chafed wrists and pressed a kiss into the mangled, divine flesh.

“I take no offense, Lord Death,” Ares said. “You were kept from doing so by foolish men.”

Thanatos couldn’t yet stand, and so he slumped against a pillar, and Ares joined him. Thanatos leaned against him and listened to the shrieks of Thanatos’s sisters as Ares’s retinue ravaged the palace. Ares smelled of blood and spice.

“I don’t know what I could offer you that you don’t already possess on Olympus,” Thanatos confessed. “I thought about perhaps violently killing my own serpent, to return your gesture. But I couldn’t. It’s not in my nature.”

“I’d never ask that you change your nature,” Ares said. “I certainly won’t change mine.”

“That’s fine,” Thanatos murmured. “Would you take some of my blood, then? To repay your gift?”

Ares looked at him with such sharp intensity that Thanatos felt the urge to abscond again.

“That’s a heady gift, Lord Death,” Ares murmured. Thanatos flushed again.

“It’s just reciprocity,” he insisted. “It’s nothing at all. Here,” he shakily drew his blade, just enough to cut his palm. He closed his fist and held his hand out to Ares.

Ares hissed and then scrambled to find anything at all to hold Thanatos’s offering. He found an overturned chalice and snatched it, holding it under Thanatos’s fist. Thanatos unfurled his fingers and allowed his golden ichor to drip into the cup.

“An oath-breaking king’s petty trinket, to hold the ichor of Death Incarnate,” Ares said, disgusted. “It isn’t right, Lord Death.”

“I’m unsure how I curried your favor, Lord Ares,” Thanatos confessed, pulling back his injured hand. He dabbed at it with his dirty himation. He longed for a bath in one of Hades’s fountains. He longed for Nyx, but he wasn’t ready to face her yet. “We’re hardly alike.”

“I’ve told you,” Ares said. “I admire you. I’m a student of death, and I’ve plenty to learn from you.”

“Oh, well,” Thanatos said, disappointed. “If that’s all—”

“It’s not,” Ares said. “But you’re difficult to court. I nearly brought you a shield as a gift, but Aphrodite Symmakhia thought that overkill. Though, now that you’ve given me your blood, I may bring you a flock of cattle to rival even Helios’s.”

Thanatos flushed, stuttered, and then he absconded in a flutter of his wings.

* * *

Later, when Thanatos recounted the story to Megaera, she laughed.

**Author's Note:**

> there may be more to this, but I'm not sure yet!


End file.
